


It's better to feel pain, than nothing at all.

by marcoftmario



Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU, Angst, I'm so sorry, M/M, So Wrong It's Right, i don't know where i'm going with this, marco explains and mario understands, marco is kinda like glen from weekened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 23:08:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4723697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcoftmario/pseuds/marcoftmario
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mario, you are a private detective. You have to act professional. You can't think those things about the person you are investigating. Specially when you're not attracted to him. Specially when you don't know him."<br/>That's what he is repeating to himself everyday. Apparently, it doesn't work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Begining.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is going to be long. The purpose of this is to increase my writing in english because it sucks (I also love Mario and I'm excited because I love how Marco is going to be).  
> Sorry if the first chapter is boring and short, it'll get better, I promise (I think).  
> -  
> It's late, I'm tired and I will correct this tomorrow.

He couldn’t say _why_ or _when_ it started. Since he was younger, fourteen or fifteen years old, it was noticeable to everyone that he liked the darkness, he liked to hide, to see people and to not be seen, but only when they started asking him what he wanted to do with his life, he knew. There was no doubt, despite what his parents could think.

His formation was excellent. There were a lot of types of science he couldn’t stand, but he could study them with enthusiasm and dedication if it was necessary to any case he was investigating, and he didn’t mind to inform about them. It didn’t take him many years -he was twenty two years old then, which was extremely young for any profession like that, one that didn’t require many years of study but yes a lot of experience and age. He, no place to doubt, was brilliant on what he did, even if in other instances he _didn’t care-_ to be allowed to call him a _private detective._

He couldn’t say when it started but, once he had done it, he was practically unstoppable. He didn’t need years of slowly having to climb to have two miserable clients and due to his efficacy in the few cases he had at the beginning, more was the quantity of people who didn’t want to deal with the police, who considered that they weren’t going to be able to solve it, who just didn’t think it was worth it or wanted extra support because they had doubts with the police, appeared with more money, prestige and interesting and important cases. He couldn’t solve _everything_ , and not everything was going to end as he wanted because of his age; he was young and the immaturity was still a part of him, the anxiety that sometimes worked but that sometimes was disproportionate. Yet, the vast majority of the people ended up very thankful with him.

The ones who weren’t thankful were the other persons, the ones he investigated and, if it was something illegal what he discovered they did, imprison (or make sure that they end up in prison). He wouldn’t have realized of that if it wasn’t for the (over)protection of his parents who insisted so much that he ended up doing _something_ to protect himself; a name. His “detective” name. But he didn’t like it, he had chosen it so quickly, hurried, that when he wanted to realize everyone called him like that. He avoided completely using it with his closest friends, the people he loved, in part because he didn’t feel identified with it and, well, because his best friend and flat mate had the same name. _André._ For all these people, he was his real name. He was Mario.

André, temperamental as always, had been angry when Mario told him for the first time, in a rather weird situation -a client calling André’s name and both turning around to answer-, but as soon as the other managed to explain, he -more and less- understood. Because he was André, and all he did was understand.

It was incredible how comprehensive he was with Mario. If he went somewhere without telling him and ended up gone all day and even the night too, he didn’t say anything. Maybe he asked a bit about whatever he was investigating (at the beginning he refused to answer but André wouldn’t tell anyone and most of the things he faced were small things, like suspects of infidelity or the feeling that they were being swindled. It wasn’t that they didn’t matter; it was just that there were too similarities between these and all the others. It was almost a routine. He hated to investigate the firsts, but they did pay well and he had to live of something), but he didn’t complain at all about his bedroom in a constant disaster or the dishes heaping up in the kitchen, and the things he asked were always to know if he was okay, if something had happened to him. He knew in what kind of things he was getting into when he said yes to Mario and his life was kind of similar (moving around, not knowing if he would show up in two hours or the next day); it was just that he was considerably more tidy and prolix. Besides, despite his profession, when Mario was Mario and not the private detective, he was quite untidy and didn’t like people to get into his things not even to try and make a little order in the room.

In a month he could have six cases or have none, which wasn’t either a problem because of the money they usually paid, and sometimes five of those six problems were unfounded and totally denied by the evidence later. Sometimes a guy with money and paranoia to theft, sometimes the cook of a rich house who suspected that the husband of the woman he worked for was cheating her with another woman. Infinity of things could happen and Mario took every single one of them with the same professionalism even if some were more interesting for him than others. He was used to not to sleep for a couple of days, or to sleep on his car because they demanded him total vigilance of everything the person did (obviously paying more).

In summary, he had a hectic life, not lack of emotions, but stable after all, when he was twenty two.

The day when the people who would change his life appeared had dawn cloudy, with the kind of clouds that convert even the thoughts in something grey. Mario hated those days; he generally woke up in a bad mood, and going outside was always something he avoided to do if he could.

He thought a lot of times on what would’ve happened, how everything would’ve worked out, if he had stayed home that day only for the weather, if he had preferred the safe, saving and comfortable warmth of his house instead of going out to face the cold and the rain that threatened with start anytime soon. A lot of times he thought that if he could have a time machine to change that act, that rather lazy way to get on his feet, then on the street and to drive there and just _accept_ , more convinced by the generous amount of money they offered than by what they asked from him in general (things that will be discussed later), he would stop everything, or tell himself to stop everything. Some other times, worm-eaten by the nostalgia, he thought that the only thing he would do if he could travel to his past was live it all again, without change anything. But there isn’t a time machine and there aren’t regrets, so Mario was at the 16:59 on the arranged place for the appointment that was at 17:00. He was waiting (and hating) to be called André.

However, he knew he was hearing perfectly when he heard someone calling his name, the real one, the first time. He was standing, supporting his back on the wall of a building at less than two meters to the place where they told him to be, and he looked around and didn’t recognize anyone. They didn’t even pay him attention. It couldn’t be true. Only the people he knew called him like that, only a client would call him so discretely.

The second time he heard it he knew someone was talking to him _._ The voice, a woman’s voice, seemed to reach him from everywhere, and it was very frustrating to Mario not knowing who the fuck was calling his name. Everyone seemed so…on their worlds. Until, of course he would’ve had to do it at some point, he saw her. She was tall, she was outstanding, she was imposing, she was powerful. She was beautiful, with a kind of beauty that seemed even dangerous, that made him feel… intimidated? Maybe. He didn’t exactly know how she made him feel. If someone suddenly told him that a woman like that would exist, he wouldn’t believe it, if he weren’t looking at her. Suddenly, she was in front of him and the bright and penetrating eyes were looking at him like they were judging him. Mario had _never_ been looked on that way before.

Of course, he had to see the man who was taking her arm; he made a big contrast with her. It was obvious that he had been imposing, too… at his time, and he was rather low (even when Mario wasn’t someone in conditions to judge it). The gray hair had a slovenly hairstyle, just like the beard, but in general aspects his face didn’t give that impression, on the contrary. His eyes, dark as ink, Mario could see, had lost a part of that force of expression that was _obvious_ he had had before, and he must’ve been fifty-fifty five years old. They were both dressed stylishly, which made Mario, with the jeans (pretty expensive they had been, anyway) and the leather jacket he had, feel out of place, even though they were in the street.

“Mario” the woman repeated, to call his attention. Obviously, she was victorious. “Shall we get in?” She asked, serious, without reflecting any emotion, and didn’t let him pronounce any word because she was already pointing the departments above her with his head and getting in knowing he would follow them. It was logical. He was there, had gone that far. It was obvious he wouldn’t go out.

When both, the woman impatiently rushing the passage of her partner, got into the elevator and went to the top floor, Mario was encouraged to try luck saying something. He might end getting something interesting.

“How do you know my name?” And when there was no answer, after a couple of seconds. “Who are you?”

For an instant, there was resignation and the two looked at each other. The woman, suddenly, broke in loud laughter that was obviously false. She had so much power. It was only laughter. Mario _never_ heard someone laugh like that before, even if it was false. The woman, for the three words he had heard from her, had a normal voice, maybe too neutral, but the laughter left Mario shocked and that had never happened to him with a sound.

“Do you really think someone can’t find out a name when you’re that _famous_ on this ambient?” Mario didn’t know he was famous. He didn’t even know what _this ambient_ was.

The man, finally, spoke. His voice matched his face, grave and clear.

“I am Pep and she is Ann. That’s the only thing you need to know… by now.”

Mario felt like he was hallucinating. He could had a look at the departments before they entered the elevator; they weren’t ugly but you wouldn’t imagine for a second people like these living in one of those.  It wasn’t rare for people to make an appointment in a place weird so they couldn’t be seen for any familiar person (it was an outright **_no_** to have an office. It was enough for people to get his personal number), but it was never so secret or mysterious. Yeah, of course, he was a detective and that was worthy of a movie, but it was necessary that much?

He stopped thinking about it. It looked like the woman, Ann, who was obviously much younger than the man, was more impulsive, closed, and he saw the man a lot more well-disposed to speak, more relaxed. The following words didn’t do more than confirm it.

“You’re here only because we think on your convenience” he didn’t ask what was for him _my convenience_ only because Pep spoke again, like hurried. “But the issue is that we require your services as a private detective, obviously” the elevator door finally opened (Mario was going to stop breathing of being locked up with those two) and as soon as they were out of it, Pep gave him a heavy, dark look, like if he was about to trust him a secret. “…because something very important has been stolen from me.”

Mario’s eyes lightened up despite the situation. Something very important. It wasn’t like he thought he deserved it, but he had been waiting something very important for so long he couldn’t remember since when. It was _the_ opportunity, he felt, to start getting slightly really famous or, better said, get the things he did famous. Have on every newspaper the news that someone, thanks to him, found this thing, or realized something about another person, without needing his name on it. He wanted to start triumphing and not to need more than a case for month.

Pep went straight to one of the apartments but Mario and Ann didn't, and because of that he stayed looking at her and gave her his brightest smile. She had _that_ smile again, the uncomfortable, and Mario gave up, lookeat a the floor and walked again, following the other man, while she did the same, triumphant.

As soon as they entered, Mario knew that nobody lived there, that they had only taken him there so they didn’t speak on the street. It was completely furnished but there wasn’t anything personal in there, nothing that said that someone was residing there. The sofa, the TV, the chairs, the table and the folder on it were there, but it was just that. When Ann closed the door, he felt inexplicably locked, alone with that two elegant, strange unknown people in an apartment he didn’t know at all and that seemed totally uninhabited.

“A coffee or something more discreet like a dark lane would’ve been right” he muttered, with an undecided voice, like he’d been doubting between saying it or not.

“No” Ann said quickly, with energy, with that permanent seriousness Mario was getting used to maybe too quickly. Pep looked at him with severity, as if he didn’t approve that attitude, and spoke a lot more calmed.

“Anyway, I know who did it.”

Mario, thanks to Pep’s attitude, was starting to feel comfortable with the situation and more and less with the people. He didn’t bother talking with that kind of people once he knew they would do nothing to him; as they were people with so much power they could do it with no reason or excuse.

“Why don’t you denounce it to the police?”

The silence that installed after that was sinister. It was obvious on the look of the two that they didn’t harmonize a lot with the police. Okay. “Let’s say that that I can’t denounce the things he stole from me. Besides, they are useless. I’ve been told about you…and I need you to take charge of confirming that he stoles other things to other people too, I know he does pretty often. It’s revenge. I want you to make the most complete inform you’ve ever done, taking your time if necessary. I don’t care. I want him to end in jail or suffering” and that’s when he made a gesture indicating him to sit in one of the chairs. He sat in front of the other man and –finally- the folder appeared.

If Mario would’ve realized of how much that photo and that name written, above what evidently was his firm, were going to change him, the way he had to see people, he didn’t know if he would have done it. When he opened it, unconscious or what that will cause, he was only surprised by how many information there was. Twenty five years old. Light brown hair, almost blond, occasionally dyed. _Brown eyes._ Stature: 1,80 m. Weight: 67 kg. Birth date: may, 31th. Type of blood. _Type of blood._ Actual residence. This information must’ve been recollected by another private detective or for someone slightly obsessed with him, he thought.

Without wanting it, without waiting for it, the thought came to his head. The first thought in a million. _A girl could obviously get obsessed with him._ He was twenty six years old, blond, with tattoos, skinny. By the pictures, he looked cute. Mario didn’t have problems on saying it: he was a man and in the pictures he looked cute. But he had to remember that it was possible (according to Pep, it was and he was sure) criminal.

He came back to reality. He looked up from the pictures. Ann was looking at him. “Well, any question or objection before we start talking about everything else?

Yes. Like a million of questions. He started with the first of the innumerable amount of questions that crowded on his head. He felt like he was never going to get out of that place, but he wanted information. “Er, yes. Where are this address and those places? I don’t recognize it.”

The woman fixed her hair, looking irritated with herself by having forgetting that.

“Right. You probably want to know this to consider it. It’s in Dortmund.”


	2. Of how Mario arrived to Dortmund and what he saw there.

_Sweet love illumination_  
_Sweet, sweet love relevation_  
_Outside, fresh avarice_  
_But inside love, you will be alright_  
_Sweet love illumination_  
_Sweet, sweet love celebration._

 

It was only when he came home that he remembered. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized before so he could’ve told them that he wasn’t going to do it. He couldn’t believe that the memories didn’t come to his mind. It was obvious that he was Marco. Obviously. He was that blond, skinny guy who seemed younger than he was and who had all the girls behind him. Of course, if he was two years older than him and shared smiles all day like it was that easy. He must’ve crossed two words with him in all the years Mario spent there, on that school, –because he moved to Munich on the year the other graduated– so he didn’t have a lot of references of how he was at that age, but it was evident that he had changed, physically and attitudinally. If he wouldn’t have changed, Mario would have nothing to do in his life.

He opened the door of his department, thinking as soon as he entered that he would find it in complete loneliness and that he could think what he needed to think, meditate what he needed to meditate. It wasn’t like that.

“Mario?” he heard the scream when he closed the door and he knew it was André, who was waiting for him to arrive later. He reached with fast steps the living room and the dining room –his house wasn’t _that_ big– and saw him sitting at the table with a considerable amount of papers, books and notes extended on the table –they actually occupied it completely– and coffee next to him. He inclined behind  him to see what he was studying before going to the kitchen, because it was evident that he didn’t understand anything of all that.

“Why are you here?” he asked while he served water on a glass and put ice whit the modern refrigerator they had obtained –thanks André and his well pay job. Thanks Mario’s generous parents–. “I thought you would be studying with Montana by now.”

André only waited until Mario sat in front of him, looking at him, and shook his head negatively, the gesture saying it all. _Oh. Again._

“But it doesn’t matter” he rejected the attempt of the younger to speak –he had opened his mouth and was about to say something– trying to make him ‘feel better’, knowing how useless it would be. “And what did they say to you?”

“Nah, there’s nothing new. I accepted a case in Dortmund.” His flat mate’s first reaction was an ‘ah’ with a look fix on his notes. Mario knew that he wasn’t paying attention, so he repeated himself. “In Dortmund.”

The reaction, now yes, in that moment, was swift. André’s words preceded his gestures. “Seriously? That’s good! I’m so happy for you, Mario. So what? Is the case interesting?” he was talking quickly, had let go the cup of coffee and was staring at him, as he always did while he spoke. He could get out of any distraction just to talk to you.

“It’s the usual, just that something more…” he searched for the word “sinister. Do you remember Marco Reus, that blond who went to the same class than you at school, when we were in Dortmund? Well, it seems like he steals now, and I need to find evidence or compromising photos so he can end ‘in jail or suffering’, quoting someone’s words.”

“Why is it sinister? How was the guy?” now he was speaking more curious than something else and when he mentioned Marco’s name he kept at least at naked eyeindifferent, even though they were something like friends some years ago.

“It was obvious that he was in weird stuff, I don’t know” and he took his time and told him more and less how the situation ended, carefully omitting all the part of Ann, the girl-the woman. He didn’t like to tell André about women, especially that kind of girls, the ones he couldn’t speak of without stutter, and he couldn’t only mention her like she ‘was just there’. Because she hadn’t only _been there_ , it didn’t matter how little she had spoken.

“So… Did you confirm them? When will you be there?”

“In a couple of days” the younger informed. It had seemed strange to him something so fast, but actually he guided by how much money they offered him, so as soon as the number was mentioned he knew he would accept. Also, _Dortmund._ He missed Dortmund. “I have the hotel, the money for food and everything. Will you miss me babe?” he said, jokingly.

“How much time is it?” André seemed to ignore the question, or want to know the answer of that question to answer.

“I'll start with a month.” He didn’t even know. “We’ll see later. I suppose that if I _convince_ him and need more time it’s going to be another month, but I don’t think it’s more than three months. According to what they said I think it’s going to be one of the complicated ones when I’ve got to be careful.”

“That’s weird, isn’t it? Marco wasn’t someone to be careful about when he was a teenager.” He made the comment like he was thinking out loud, something that had become a habit on the blond.

“How was he in high school?” Mario asked it before realizing what he was saying. He was starting to generate certain curiosity for Marco Reus. The fact that he was someone they already know on such a big city, that he was someone Mario didn’t have reasons to have memories of but he had, made him want to _know_ more.

André took a couple of seconds to think. It was obvious that it was a difficult question for him. “He was an enigma. He laughed of stupidities anyone said, he seemed to take everything in life as a joke but when some friend made fun of someone he stopped him –or her– on the sly, as if he didn’t want anyone to find out that he was a good person. He spent the day around girls but as soon as they let him alone a while he read books of everything. We started to talk more in last year but the truth is that he was a pretty intelligent guy. He didn’t seem like it. He smiled too much. Why would you smile that much? He wasn’t my favorite person after all; he was a schoolmate and nothing else.”

“By what I saw, he didn’t seem the type of person who could end up like that” Mario knew somehow that his friend’s answer would be something like that, because one of his friends of that moment had been in love with him for some months and even if they didn’t do anything the three together she told him a little.

“He could’ve ended in any way.”

The conversation had a final point marked by André. The notes and the coffee suddenly seemed more interesting. Mario had to get ready to bear the last days in one of his two moods –in love/complaining about the fights with his girlfriend–; it depended on how everything went that day. They fought more than they were together, those two, and it was insupportable for the younger. The girlfriend didn’t think about the boyfriend’s friends when he broke up with him every time.

 

Packing up was something difficult for him, and always had been. He didn’t know what he was going to do, what he would wear or not, and he always ended up taking so much things that didn’t serve or forgetting half of the things that were useful. It was an art, all that of knowing what to take.

Anyways, there wasn’t a lot of pressure to pick things to take that day. He was going to be in a hotel in which, supposedly, there was food service, and they were going to provide him some money by if he wanted to eat in any restaurant –and not a cheap one,clearly–, besides that he could by the clothes he needed at any free time he had. The problem was if that free time didn’t come, if he was in one of those days entirely dedicated to watch and spend hours between a book that received half of his attention, and the expectation and emotion to think that _at any moment_ he could get out and walk and he had to be as calm and attentive as he could.

As he knew that in a month he could have time to buy clothes, he didn’t take too much with him. Though, of course, he never knows. _So much_ could happen in a month.

There wasn’t an emotive farewell or anything like that. After all, he was only going to be a month in Dortmund and his parents were too busy doing those mini-travels that were short but provoked that they couldn’t see each other for a while –it wasn’t that he was bothered about it–. The hours in the bus became longer than ever, because he hadn’t realized that he was thinking about Marco more than he should, and that he wanted _so much_ to see his face that he couldn’t wait to be there.

André was a little bit more overprotective than his mum, but they kept talking almost all the road. He had agreed to start with his job –first slowly, so it wasn’t so evident, trying to confirm that all the data he had was true or if it was some mistake, or change– a couple of days later, but he couldn’t stand the excitement and at the next day he was already, saying to himself that he had ‘gone for a walk’, rounding by what should be his house.

The first time he saw him was shocking, he remembers that. It revealed him something that was the key for everything he did later. He didn’t have to do much more than sitting in a seat on the street in front of what seemed to be his house and pretend to read. It was darkening and Dortmund was the same as always, it the same city he remembered, so alive and at the same time quiet. A thought was coming to his head; _at this hour Bayern Munich must be about to play_ , while he looked at the hour on his clock and pretended to read one of the books he had taken. It wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t hot, the climate being as neutral as always in that time of the year. At first, he wasn’t sure if it was him, but he saw the hair color just like in the picture, something like a beard that’s letting grow, the way he dressed and, what finally convinced him, the fact that he was entering the house with the right number in the folder they had given him. He looked hurried and he was serious. He was accompanied by a man taller than him, of dark hair and pale skin, as pale as the other man’s skin but more contrasting with the hair. He was speaking constantly, but the detective couldn’t hear him or read his lips because he was half back to him. Marco was listening and nodding, and from time to time the shadow of a smile appeared on his face when he pronounced a “yeah” to show him he was listening, but he didn’t add too much to the conversation that was turning into a monologue. He seemed more hurried to be there than anything.

They reached the door and the conversation Mario was looking askance at, trying it not to notice _so much_ –even when they were too distracted on their world to pay attention to him–, suddenly wasn’t anymore. There was silence. The blond made a comment that caused a smile from the other side, but they were so close so quickly that Mario had to blink several times to confirm it was real. Suddenly they were closer and suddenly they were kissing and suddenly Marco was opening the door and suddenly they weren't there anymore.

It had darkened. He got on his feet and decided to go back to his hotel, sleep well. He couldn’t understand. He still didn’t process what he had just seen; he hadn’t waited for it at all, even if inside him he knew.

It was the first time he saw Marco knowing that the other couldn’t see him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm sorry if it was too short, big things will happen later, I swear.


	3. Someone New.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I took my time to write this, but the words didn’t seem to come out so I’m scared that this sucks (I’ve been doubting before posting this).  
> Well, next chapter is all Marco’s :)

_Would things be easier if there was a right way?_  
_Honey, there is no right way._  
_So I fall in love just a little, oh a little bit everyday with someone new._

 

Exactly two weeks was all he lasted until he got bored of Marco Reus. He wasn’t bored of Marco himself (seeing him had certain charm, especially when he put that faces that meant nothing to him and were really, _really_ pretty, Mario didn’t like to think like that but he had to be honest with himself), it was just that his life couldn’t be more normal, at least during the day. He spent a lot of time in his house, generally accompanied by the tall, dark-haired guy, or the other with dark skin that was included on the folder as someone close to him and a possible partner on whatever illegal stuff he was into, sometimes with a female friend or a big group. Every day he went out of his house with what seemed like a sports bag and came back to his house some hours later. What Mario could realize, only by looking at the expressions on his face, was that Marco wasn’t completely happy. Mario was very perceptive with everyone else’s life, with their feelings and, also, he didn’t need to read minds to see the serious faces and the lament, the emptiness on his eyes when he thought nobody was looking, proper of the most suffered artists. He felt a little bit –just a little bit– of compassion for him, but he couldn’t allow himself to see him that way because if he was lucky he would end up blaming him.

He found himself avoiding doing certain things, certain responsibilities. By example, he would forget to take note of some actions, or prefer to go quickly to buy something knowing perfectly that he had to be attentive to anything that could happen. The time he used to watch him was shorter than before, as if he wanted to last more than he had to find out something. At the beginning he didn’t realize, he was doing it just to do something, watching the blonde’s expressions and trying to, more than see what he was doing, see how he felt. He was starting to pay more attention than he should to him as a person.

But he got bored, he finally got bored. And, as if that was nothing, the evening of the fifth day in Dortmund, he decided as he finished the last pizza slice and read the last page of the last book he had taken with himself that he wouldn’t go to Marco Reus’ house during day. He had had special care with Auba that, yes, used to appear during day, but it was nothing compared with what would happen in the night. He was sure that the visits repeated at night and maybe there he could discover something new. And, since the most important things were happening at night (or that’s what the instinct was saying and, as a private detective, he had learned to always prioritize the instinct when nothing else was working), and he couldn’t watch him twenty-four hours a day, logically, what he was going to do was simple: in the day, he would sleep as much as he could. At night, he _was_ going to find out what he was doing and with whom. And it wasn’t enough with just something small, because the punishment wouldn’t be too much; he needed something important. He needed to see him stealing something from a rich, he needed to take a picture and put on the report all the horrible things that human being did.

On the other hand, Mario’s unconscious was resisting simply because the guy didn’t seem capable of doing it, didn’t seem capable of doing wrong to someone in purpose. Mario knew that he didn’t know him, he couldn’t say what things he had done, but he had so much sincerity on his face, so much decency, that he didn’t know how to avoid thinking about that, boycotting himself.

The first day he decided to stay at night he got some answers. The first hours were irritating, slow, heavy, but finally, at 11 pm. Marco finally got out of his house with the lightest step possible. He didn’t walk a lot, that’s what Mario noted when he followed him by the most prudent distance, because he entered to a place that seemed discreet by outside, it could pass as a department, but when the blond opened the door he saw and listened that it was a pub. When the door was closed quickly behind him, Mario arrived, raised his head and saw the signal that seemed hidden in purpose. “Pub”, it only said that, without needing to have impacting and awesome names. After a couple of seconds of doubt he pushed the door, because he had nothing to lose. Marco couldn’t recognize him, he’d never seen him after high school and he wouldn’t know who he was, he was sure about it. When he entered, he got wrapped by the atmosphere. The music was flowing out of the speakers continually, animated, strong, nonstop, to the point that everyone who wanted to speak would have to do it shouting, or raising the voice. There was almost darkness, except for some weird lights here and there. The place was obviously bigger than what it looked outside, and there was too much din. One after the other, the songs sounded and Mario was starting to get headache (it wasn’t that he didn’t like those places, it was too noisy and he would’ve chosen anywhere but here to put a pub). As he tried to keep unseen, he saw several couples on the dark, kissing, keeping contact the entire time one with the other and at the beginning he didn’t realize if there was something different than what he had expected… until he realized who these people were.

He didn’t exaggerate. It wasn’t as if he had never seen two homosexuals kissing, it wasn’t as if he was bothered about it. But when someone said _gay pub_ it wasn’t exactly what came to his mind. It was a regular pub. People were nothing but happy, anyway, and no one bothered Mario at all, as he could’ve thought across his prejudices.

Marco didn’t do a lot. He asked for something to drink, spoke with the barman, stayed a long while chatting with him, it was noticeable that they knew each other and seemed to discuss something very attuned, hearing themselves over the music with a lot of effort. Marco was so concentrated that he didn’t see the dark-skinned guy with the crazy hair (Auba, Auba) getting close to him and tapping him in the back so he could see him. The other stopped in the middle of a phrase and turned around to greet him with a hug and used that advantaged position to whisper something on his ear. They were so different to the other people around them, the contrast was too much and even funny. Immediately later the blond paid, saluted him and they were out of there.

The distance the detective took was considerable, by doubts, but he still had the chance to listen for a second a fragment of a conversation and find out something. Auba had lighted what seemed to be a cigarette, by the smoke… but no, when he felt the smell it was leaving, it was evidently a spliff. Marco was the one who objected. “You’re gonna have to pay for that later.”

The other exhaled the smoke to the opposite side Marco was; as if he knew he was bothered by it and didn’t want to throw it to his face. “Why?” according to what Marion had seen of his face, he had thought his voice would be a little lower, but it was normal. The exact contrary had happened to him with Marco.

“We’ve got to sell them, not smoke them. I’m going to lose money” by the voice and the posture of his shoulders, he looked uncomfortable on the situation. “Also, I don’t like that shit. I don’t like you smoking it” and yeah, there was a bit of protection there, of worry by the other one, without doubt.

“Okay, okay” evidently, Auba had turned it off and saved it on his pocket because yeah, it was expensive. Mario liked that he was heeding him after all, and he didn’t know why. He felt like he was right.

They turned left in the corner, like addressing to Marco’s house, and Mario thought that it was enough for one night. He came back to the hotel to write the report of the day and to sleep a little; he was tired.

Weeks passed very quickly, and you could say that exactly the same as the previous ones but the other way around. The man he was investigating got out a lot at night, almost the same than he did at day, but there wasn’t a lot of change with the first night. Marco’s life wasn’t very interesting… the interesting _was Marco._ When Mario looked at him alone or talking to somebody he just met he always seemed sad, or at least extremely serious, but when he was with his friends he smiled and spoke and laughed, and if he didn’t, the body expressions demonstrated it: he was happy. One night, the last he had in Dortmund, he saw him getting out of his house, sitting on the bench of the park in front of his house (the same one Mario had been when he saw Marco for the first time),smoking a cigarette and looking at the sky. Completely still, Mario didn’t see him but he was sure he knew exactly how his expression was, mortally pale the neck and the forehead accentuated by the slight blush on the cheekbones due to the coldness.

_I would like to see his expression right now. I would like to know what he’s thinking._

He repressed the thought as soon as it emerged. It wasn’t possible that he, _he from all the people,_ who detested fake people, who made illegal things and hided it, who cheated in someone close to them, was thinking that. Because he didn’t give a fuck about Marco Reus, because it was obvious that he wasn’t a good person, selfish and too serious (or that’s what he said to himself to avoid thinking).

 

It was just curiosity. What he had felt every time he saw him was just curiosity, because he had known him and he could affirmthat it was him. And that was it. He couldn’t want to be his friend if he didn’t know him at all. There were many reasons why that thought was wrong.

He was thinking about it while making his case to go back to Munich. If Pep had given up, or wanted to get rid of him because he thought he was useless (he also felt like that, honestly, and he was disappointed of himself, but the blond seemed to bewilder him), it was fine that the last time he had seen him was like that, in a moment of reflection and calm, in the middle of the night, and not at any other time. It contributed to the ideal that, unconsciously and in parallel inside his mind to the rational side, had been forming inside him.

 

“They told me you were the best of your age. And not only one person, eh. And I don’t know if I didn’t explain myself well or you didn’t know how to understand me, but it makes me angry that it happened. And now I feel like I’ve lost a month, because it says here basically that he’s gay and he sells some drugs, and I already knew that. I don’t need those things. He _stole_ something from me, I don’t know if I told you” the way Pep had to express his angriness was very peculiar. He didn’t yell, but he didn’t speak slow, more hurried than anything else, as if the time wasn’t enough to say effusively all he had to say. He was evidently disappointed, but Mario didn’t know what else he wanted him to do in the first place. He was only glad that Ann wasn’t there to make it worse, although seeing her again wouldn’t make any bad.

“Excuse me, eh…” he didn’t know how to keep going. He knew nothing at that time. “I will understand any decision you take” yeah, that seemed appropriated. “But, what did I miss?”

“No…”Pep seemed to be meditating about something, as if he was somewhere else, until he saw him and remembered the conversation and his point of view. “I’m not going to stop disposing your services or something like that. If you think its okay, I’ll have to give you a second chance to investigate this” it was obviously a way of saying because he was the one who paid him. “But I want you to be something more than a private detective. Something like- a spy. I want you to speak to him, to make him trust you and, I don’t know, then you ask him about the things he does. If he tells you something, if you prove something, you won’t believe the economic reward you’ll have. The worse that can happen is a little weight on the consciousbut I know you think the same as me ‘cause that’s what he deserves.” He was thinking about killing him? No, if he was attempting to kill somebody he wouldn’t need him. He was just hoping that what would happen to him wouldn’t be too much… no, he was just hoping he could do his job well, and what was all.

Was that, was it an illusion or was it really a smile on the old man’s face?

 

The eyes are the most expressive thing the face has. Of course that nothing compares to the final result that all the features together produce, showing an expression that can only be interpreted in one (maybe two) way, like by example the face of repressed happiness that is the sum of the slight curvature on the lips, usually only one side, the forehead a bit wrinkled(although that depends on the person, obviously, many people just keep the forehead completely normal because the difference with a “normal” face is thin but it’s there) and the eyes miserably slanted. That one lasts thousandths of second until the smile explodes. Of course nothing compares to that. But the eyes… the eyes. I’m a specialist in looking at the eyes. They aren’t called “the window to the soul” for nothing. Because you can smile, yes, you can fake a laugh and no one will realize, but the eyes can’t lie. You just look at them and you know.

Every person has their own way to express feelings through eyes, looks. And finding out in a person is always way more interesting than in the last one.

That’s why everything Mario saw in André when he came back, everything he detected on him, was his eyes; his eyes looking at him and getting surprised, his eyes being the center of him while he got closer to hug him friendly, smiling and realizing that he had missed his best friend. He had came back to his house without previous inform, a day before André was expecting, after talking to him (but even if he arrived 10 days later André wouldn’t realize that he wasn’t there, he was like that) and had found him in a situation that looked like the one he had seen the first time he spoke with Pep; sitting in front of the table, with mountains of books around him. It was the first time in a month that he gripped the books, he had told him. That’s a lot of coincidence, isn’t it? Almost too much, and that wink made him laugh.

“So, how was it at the Borussia Dortmund’s city? There was too much black and yellow?”

He knew André would ask that. He knew the expression he would have, joking and thinking that he was funny or sympathetic. “It was relatively okay. I mean, not with the guy, but I got disconnected from everything.  And- I felt more like a tourist. I mean, I grew up there. I was a Dortmund fan before. It’s like I’m not identified by the city anymore. I couldn’t remember where anything was.”

André was looking at him, thoughtful, like developing an answer on his head. “Wait, you were a Dortmund fan?”

“Yes- I have to be in constant change, constant evolution.”

When he said that he had no idea of how much he would think about that topic later. Of how much he would be incentivized to think.


	4. Still Take You Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I hope you enjoy this chapter. <3

_You're just probably alright_   
_but under these lights you look beautiful._   
_But what do you know?_   
_Oh you know nothing_   
_Yeah, but I'll still take you home_   
_Yeah, I'll still take you home._

He only stopped to think about what he would do when he was on his way. He had, more and less, a plan: going to his house, hoping that he would get out (he surely would), follow him and, if he was going to a public place, pretend to recognize him and being surprised by that. He would try to earn his trust; he certainly wasn’t worried about that, he could be persuasive when he wanted and doing that came out pretty well. He knew the month that was coming to him would be agitated and intense.

But he only began to think on how Marco would be when he was coming to the hotel. The other two days he had focused to get everything ready again and going to see his family, because evidently Pep didn’t want to lose any more time than what he felt he had lost (a whole month). He didn’t even know what his posture on that situation was. He would’ve imagined that he wanted to know Marco, to finally know who he was, but when he could, he didn’t care. It wasn’t that the blond didn’t raise a tremendous curiosity on him, that was undeniable, but it was something he didn’t know how to explain. He didn’t want to be disappointed, maybe.

Only at the end he realized that he _was_ nervous. He had had a long talk with Pep that time; he knew clearly what he had to do, they had already paid him a part of all (very important) but, in a way, it was all about getting out of his comfort zone. Being a private detective, watching, investigating, were things that he could do almost perfectly, almost like an automaton, and still enjoyed it. But being a part of the story, talking, getting involved, lying, were things he wasn’t used to do at all. He hadn’t stopped to think, blinded by the amount of money they had put in front of him.

Mario. Twenty-two years old. From Munich, although he only lived there for a couple of years; since he moved to Dortmund with André. Currently without work and doesn’t study anything. Travelling in Dortmund for pleasure. No. Or was it that he worked, and was travelling for work? He couldn’t go like that. He had to be careful with what he would say.

 

He decided to do everything they told him to do: he arrived, took a nap, showered, ate, accommodated all his room and prepared all the things like they needed to be. He packed up the important, looked in the mirror a thousand times (why? There was no need to do that. Yes, it was a habit he had and something he liked; not going in the street just like that, but he was going to see Marco, not his girlfriend or something like that), put the recorder, his recorder, the one he always used and the one he knew that worked, on a pocket in which you get to listen a normal conversation, and went outside.

It was cold outside, colder than what it had been when he had got out of the car, but it was bearable because it was just five o’clock in the afternoon and the sun was still appearing from time to time between the clouds. He decided to walk, since there was only ten minutes of distance between the hotel and his house and promptly he was there, near the door. He saw the other man’s back by pure casualty.

He was at the corner, turning to the left. On that side of the city there wasn’t a lot of people, so it wasn’t an effort for him to hurry his steps and follow him. He had a scarf on, piece of information that he would use as a reference, if necessary. It wasn’t, anyway; he managed to get into a coffee shop very quickly, with his hands on the pockets of the black coat even when he had to open the door. Mario waited a little bit, the prudent time, before getting inside, so it didn’t look too suspicious. He scanned the place with the eyes and saw him sitting alone, in front of the bar. He was having too many good things to be the first day.

He sat in one of the chairs, because they were disposed one next to the other. He didn’t sit directly next to him, but he left a seat of distance between the two, so he didn’t seem too obvious. He asked for a coffee to the waiter of the bar. The place looked nice, had a good decoration and the ambient music was _really_ good. The girl received him with a smile and Mario thought she was good, for no reason. People in Dortmund were always good. He picked up a random newspaper from the table and acted like he was reading while he felt the smell of food that was quite distracting to him. He slowly turned the recorder on. Marco had never been so close to him without place to doubt, and he realized that the other either had nervous tics or was impatient for something, because he started to bite his nails and then to rhythmically tap on the table with the finger tips, nearly with his nails. Mario tried, for the first moments, not too look at him anymore.

The waiter brought the coffee for both of them at the same time (they had ordered almost the same) and Mario made good use of that. When the blond said “thank you” and he had to inevitably raise his head, look at him, he saw him and made his best effort to fake hidden surprise. He waited, had an uncertain attitude before looking at him and saying, on his most innocent voice. “I’m sorry; do I know you from somewhere? You look so familiar…”

He let the phrase on the air and looked at him, at how he slowly stopped looking at whatever he was looking before (a fixed point on the table) and gazed at him. He blinked a couple of times before reacting, like besotted, but his look didn’t seem silly at all. He found a mistake on Pep’s folder (his folder, the base for everything he had known) as soon as he looked at him in the eye: these were green, of a strange green, dark, easily mistakable with a brown from the distance but without doubt green. His expression didn’t say anything, but the posture of his body did; he was sitting straight, like on guard. He smelled, over all the scents of that bar, fresh, like fresh air. And he smelled like coffee.

“Are you sure it’s me? Because I think that…” he started, but Mario already felt like he had developed acting skills and like he had to stay on the typical character that remembers someone from high school and just gets excited.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. I think I know you from school. Yes, from school! I was younger, André was m…” he regretted what he had said, he realized of his mistake, while he was saying it. He didn’t have to mention André. He didn’t have anything to do with André in Dortmund. But he saw the blond man, who was still looking straight at him; he saw it on his eyes, a spark of recognition. Something good, impossible of misinterpret for anyone attentive to that light frown, that sudden change on his eyes that lasted less than a second but that _was there._

“Oh, I think I know who you are. But I definitely can’t remember your name. André’s friend…” he was speaking more at that point, but the expression and the attitude were again the same. Neutral. He didn’t care if André’s friend was there talking to him, he didn’t care about his name.

“Mario.”

“Mario, yes” he pronounced it weird, converting his name in something sweet. The younger found himself about to ask him to say it again. There was, after, an awkward silence that seemed forced for him. “How’s André?”

“Good. Studying some scientific shit in Munich” it was enough to let him know that he was interested on the conversation, but it wasn’t _so much_ information about André and he knew he didn’t have to speak more than that. The cursing was too much, he thought, and he had to remember himself that _I don’t know him I have to go slowly._

Marco nodded and muttered some words. “I’m glad. I am very different to how I was before, to be honest.”

That comment caused the younger’s curiosity. He could only ask, not so much for his ‘duty as a detective’ but for personal curiosity. “What is what’s changed?” he asked.

Marco stayed looking at him. And while he was speaking, soft but not sweet anymore, he kept looking at him. Did he ever blink? “Principally, now I think.”

At that moment, someone entered by the door, Mario didn’t look a lot but he guessed that it was the tall guy, and Marco made a gesture to make him get closer. At that time Mario considered that it was too much and that he would speak with him another day, the next day maybe. He paid quickly, mumbled an also quick goodbye and left. When he was already walking, he heard a “see you, Mario”. He felt like he was dying. He turned around and achieved the _true_ reason why he was there, principally; he saw him smile.

He was disappointed. He realized as soon as he left the coffee shop. Marco Reus was normal. He was charming, fresh, and had an incredible talent to hide feelings and reactions better than anyone, but normal after all. He reacted just as anyone else would do when someone spoke to him; he was a bit like everyone. Or that’s what he was thinking, what he was feeling. He was _so_ wrong.

When he came back to the hotel, the enormous and expensive room Pep was giving him, he heard the recording he had recently made. While he listened, he recalled the blonde’s expressions, and he was amazed again by how surprising it was that someone could make of a normal name something own. It remained unclear if it was the “R”, the “M” or the way he had to make it look more Italian (thing which neither of them was) what he liked so much about it, but it didn’t care. He quickly drafted one of those reports in which he took note and made clear that he had contacted him, that it was all positive, that it was okay and that he would approximate again that night, if the opportunity was given.

He didn’t know what to do until the night came. He couldn’t stop thinking about him. He couldn’t stop thinking about him saying his name. He would see him again and he needed to get his trust, his friendship. How he was going to do it, he didn’t know. He hadn’t been particularly interested on him that afternoon and he thought it was weird that in a conversation of three or five minutes he’d never smiled to him, hardly showing him a clue of that gesture when he was leaving. That wasn’t how he remembered him at high school.

 _Principally, now I think._ Would that be a part of thinking? That’s how he was now? Would he consider smiling as something from his silly adolescence, something to forget, to never repeat? Or he was more serious only because he didn’t know him?

He thought about it uninterruptedly until he decided that it was dinner time. He ate something in the hotel only by convenience and because he didn’t have to pay. He took a cab that time.

 

The same place again, this time with considerably less people. That was, evidently, the typical pub he went at night. There was a bit lighter than the last time, and the music was at a lower volume, so the conversations could be heard, apparently. Marco was sitting in one of the tables at the far end with a group of friends and Mario watched, sitting at the bar. At one moment, as if he knew by intuition, he felt a pair of eyes watching him, like one of those presences you can’t get rid of or even ignore. He looked around him, searching, and he realized who it was. _Ann._ Sitting in one of the parts that were exclusively to sit and drink something more calmed, she was greeting him (or something like that, she held the glass up as if she was toasting), completely serious. She was staring at him, even if occasionally someone’s body interposed between their eyes, and he felt capable of doing anything she asked. That was the only way he could describe it. What was she doing there? Was she there because she wanted, for pleasure? Or was it that she distrusted him and was going to ‘supervise’ him?

He didn’t know. He didn’t care. She was beautiful.

He should’ve heard vaguely, yes, obviously he must’ve heard (after, on the recording, it was obvious that he had heard the “Robin!” to the distance and then the laugh), but what he _definitely_ felt, what made him look there, was the impact.

Someone’s back (of course, in a millisecond average he knew who it was) was crashing brutally against his shoulder. Quickly, Marco turned around, starting to say _sorry_ , but as soon as he realized who it was he interrupted himself and just stared at him. Mario didn’t know where to run. His intention was to see when he was leaving and speak to him out there, friendly, and slowly; not crashing him.

After a short infinite, his interlocutor smiled. It was a relief that didn’t last much. “Okay, I got your point.”

What point? Did he have a point? He couldn’t understand. _I wish it was as easy as saying ‘let’s play that game where we name illegal things we did. You go first. Have you ever stolen something?’_

“And I like that point.”

His facial expression now was transmitting something else, a half-smile with the right side of the mouth, and Mario was completely clueless. _What was my point, again?_ Mario could only assume that the other man should be a bit drunk, that maybe he’d drank too much with his friends and wanted to joke and laugh. But as soon as the other got closed (because he _got closer_ ) he could check that the older didn’t smell like alcohol at all. His smell, again, was fresh, as if all of him emanated freshness impossible to control. Also, yes, the deodorant he was using remembered him something, but it was impossible to say what.

“And I like your eyes as well” he said it practically with the face on his neck, his mouth trying to whisper the words on his ear before putting more distance between them. He was looking at him, directly, again, and he was waiting for a reaction, positive or negative. Mario barely understood what he meant.

He had always thought that his first reaction in front of a situation like that would be laugh; the laugh that’s practically uncontrollable, by how ridiculous it was. The expression on Marco’s face was provoking him everything except laughter. He wanted to deny it, he wanted to say no, he wasn’t like _that_ , like him, but his brain worked so slowly that he didn’t know what to do. Marco Reus’ look, thoughtful over him, intelligent, sagacious, confused him. Looking at him was a lot, too much, but being looked at, having people waiting something from him, was something else, was insupportable. “I don…” and then he remembered why he could say anything except for that. He was at a gay bar (or a bar that was mostly frequented by gay people). Marco wouldn’t believe a word if he denied it, he would feel offended, and nothing would serve and… no.

“Well, I was going home when you startled me anyway” he said, when he saw his evident doubt. Mario stopped thinking, he couldn’t allow himself to hesitate, and held him firmly but not strongly by the shoulder to stop him from going away.

“I’ll go with you” he said, before knowing what he was doing or saying, imitating the gesture of Marco by saying it at a normal volume, getting close to his ear and speaking above the music. The blond didn’t say anything, he only got out and Mario, relieved, only followed him.

 

There was silence. Suddenly they got out and it was like appearing in another dimension. It was only their steps, some cars passing on the street, their thoughts, and suddenly a low voice saying the sweetest word in the world. “Mario?”

“Eh?”

“My name’s Marco” was what he said, almost shyly (but not), as if he was saying a detail.

“Yes. I remember.”

And there was a trace of a smile. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yep. I had friend who was completely in love with you” he said it like impulsively, to follow with the conversation, as he always did in front of him.

The blonde’s laugh was sincere and somehow relaxing, but he didn’t say anything else after that. At least for a few seconds.

“I was so stupid at that time.”

“Why are you saying it?”

“Well, I didn’t like thinking. And I was false with regard to everything. With my ‘friends’ I almost never spoke. I don’t know if I’ve said this to anyone before, but all the girls said that they’d kissed me, that I had done this and that to all the girls, but I actually never kissed a girl in my life.”

 _That_ was sincerity. He didn’t know why Marco was saying that to him, especially when he just met him, but he didn’t know what to say, so he preferred to stay silent, again. He didn’t want the other to think he didn’t care, but he also didn’t want to look like he didn’t respect him by saying anything.

“Where’s your house? I feel like we’ll never be there.”

Marco looked at him and he seemed to think about that comment. “One of Zeno’s paradoxes” when he saw his face, he smiled to him, that half-side smile with the right side, and proceeded to explain. “Zeno’s paradox, bah, one of them, that if my memory doesn’t fade is called the dichotomy paradox, says that we want to get somewhere. But before we get there, we have to get halfway there, don’t we?”

“Well, yeah” Mario had listened something about that subject, but he didn’t have it all clear, and Marco seemed to explain well, to understand. He didn’t even bother that the explanation was said with a lot of condescension, explained as if he was talking to someone who didn’t understand _anything._

“But before we can get halfway there, we have to get a quarter of the way there; and before that we have to travel one-eight; and before an eight, one-sixteenth, and so successively. So you will never get to that distance.”

“But?”

“Of course, but…” he waited two or three seconds until Mario looked at him. He stood on his place, and then he advanced a distance, more and less a meter. “And that’s it! I already reached that distance. That’s why it is a paradox. He is right when he says that in every place there is an infinite that can be divided and that you have to make half that way, but it is a theory that’s not very sustainable when you it comes to real life.”

His face, the face of someone excited to a simple _paradox_ , his smile because he had just showed something to him, were too cute for him. They laughed, helplessly, and suddenly they were at Marco’s house.

“Mario” he called, standing next to the door and almost leaning on it, evidently hesitating and not realizing that he didn’t need to call him to get his full attention. He liked saying his name, or that’s what it seemed. “What were you doing at a gay bar?”

So he was more perceptive than what he was letting out. Mario didn’t know the answer. He looked at him in the eye, as if he could transmit the answers like that, and Marco saw him so gaunt suddenly that he knew what to do. He gave him his hand, more and less to not to force him in doing anything, and he accompanied him within the department, and I say he accompanied him because he didn’t take him, he was not taken, it was a tacit agreement only between these two, those almost strangers who felt as if they could say every detail on the other’s life and mind.

Obviously they couldn’t. That’s why when Mario kissed him, fiercely, as if he hadn’t taught him Zeno’s paradox (one of Zeno’s paradoxes, he remembered how he’d remarked it with so much energy) less than a minute ago, Mario wasn’t a detective anymore. He hadn’t had time to look around him, to take a look at the house, because the only thing he could’ve seen if he wanted was Marco. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if the style of the house looked from a person who had money when it was evident that he didn’t work, or not. Moreover, it seemed like Mario wasn’t a person anymore.

So _that’s_ how it felt. The fact that it was Marco almost made him forget that it was a man the one he was kissing. It wasn’t disagreeable, as he had imagined (because he had imagined it, just like all of men who were honest); on the contrary, it was pretty pleasant, it was everything he would’ve wanted to be doing. He only realized that it was everything he had wanted to do since he first saw him when he had it. And now he had it and he couldn’t believe that this person (using the same adjectives of always because they’re the only ones who fit him) who was so sweet, fresh and secure of himself, because not everyone could have that attitude, could hurt someone on purpose. It didn’t help him his skinny complexion, though Mario realized soon that he looked thin but he had worked muscles, from the gym or some sport.

He turned on the light, only extending his hand and reaching the switch; he separated a bit from him and looked at him. Mario had been looked at like that once. And that time he’d thought that it was, precisely, the first time they did it. It was a fix look, serious, more serious than normal, but it wasn’t scary or weird, it was as if they wanted to look directly to his soul, or as if he wanted to read their mind. Mario felt so insecure, he felt naked, and Marco was waiting for an answer.

Right, he knew how weird he should be looking at that time. Especially silly, just like he was some seconds ago, when he had let himself go. Had he let himself go or he had been just there? He had been so _on his mind_ that he didn’t know exactly what he had done. “Do you want or not?” Marco asked, without pushing him but only being impatient, and Mario was attacked by the desire. Maybe it was because on the frenzy of kissing he had attracted him against him and _wow_ Marco was really precious so close, with all those obvious details, and it made him think about things that he shouldn’t be, that he _seriously_ shouldn’t be thinking about. It’s the night. At night I can do whatever I want without thinking. I’ll have to pay the consequences during day, but not now.

He nodded. He couldn’t say a word. Marco didn’t force him to keep confirming it with words; he got closer, slowly and gently, to him, letting Mario to be the one who kiss him, who convince him to be with him. It was obvious that he saw him undecided, and for that reason it helped Mario to decide. Again, he felt that inexplicable familiarity when he raised the hand and caressed softly his hair.

“No” Marco sentenced, serious. “Not the hair.”

“What is this? _Fifty Shades Of Grey?”_ the sentence came out by itself, without being able to control it. Again. Luckily, when he heard it, Marco smiled.

“I love my hair. That’s it.”

“You’ll leave me comb it soon. I know a lot about hair.” He sworn, and they didn’t realize _how_ and _when_ it had happened, but they were at Marco’s room.

 

“ _Talk to me, say something…”_

_“No, I don’t like when people whisper, specially now.”_

_“What? Why?”_

_“I don’t know. Why do you like cats?”_

_“…I don’t like cats. I prefer dogs.”_

_“You have to be kidding me. How can you not like cats?”_

_“No, I swear. I don’t.”_

_“I can’t have sex with you after that.”_

_“You can’t?”_

_“Well, maybe I can.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think about this!


	5. Leave before the lights come on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I didn't check this but I wanted to post it today so... sorry for the mistakes.

_And how can you wake up_  
with someone you don’t love  
and not feel slightly fazed by it?

He couldn’t sleep all night. It had been _good._ More than good; it had been splendid. But he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe what he had done, he couldn’t believe that it hadn’t been disgusting for him, that he had actually enjoyed it.

It had been sublime, yes; and we _ird._ But he was sure of what he wanted, and he wanted that. While it happened, he had done nothing but enjoy it, at some moments without knowing _what to do_ but being quickly guided by Marco, who seemed to be sure of everything.

After some whispered words, interrupted conversations, Marco fell asleep. Mario didn’t move an inch, feeling like he would be wakened up by André saying that it was time to get on his feet, fearing to wake his companion up. The seriousness he showed when he was sleeping was different to the one he had when he was conscious that he was being watched. He occasionally moved, on an almost instinctive reaction, against Mario, to be closer to the warmth that naturally irradiated from his body. Even though that was heartwarming, he didn’t feel good. He realized that he had just made a mistake and didn’t know how to repair it. He couldn’t just go at three on the morning because after all if Marco woke up and he wasn’t there he probably was going to think that he had been afraid or something like that, and surely wouldn’t talk to him ever again. The only thing he was sure of was that he _had_ to keep talking to him. If he wanted to do it, that was something else.

He couldn’t see at all. The room was dark, with only one big window and the walls painted of a color that he didn’t know exactly what it was but he knew it was a dark color, maybe violet or blue, and the heavy curtains made all the light disappear, vanish.  He could only see darker and clearest shadows when he opened his eyes, but couldn’t distingue anything. He would wait until next day.

He tried to close his eyes but, logically, couldn’t sleep. He just couldn’t stop thinking about all the possible settings that the next day would have, the shame he was starting to feel because he wasn’t gay. He had had girlfriends; he had been with a lot of girls in his life… but he couldn’t get out of his head the sensations he had felt when Marco had done… and Marco had said… and Marco was… and Marco. It surprised him that he _was_ intelligent, and it was obvious, but at the same time you knew he had experience with any kind of persons; he could know how everyone would react before saying something. That must’ve been something he still had from his times as a teenager, as he said silly, and in that years, the ones after that, he had studied a lot without doubt. He had learnt a lot, that’s not the same than studying.

The hours were passing too slowly, and Mario was panicking. He tried checking his phone, at least to do something, and from something that had not happened so far, he suddenly looked at the hour and it was eight o’clock in the morning. He got on his feet, sneaking up, trying to be as quiet as possible. Luckily, he didn’t wake him up; the other man didn’t even move. It was lighter by that hour, and curtains weren’t that thick, and he could see more and less the way to the bathroom.

At the beginning he was lost; as he always was when he was at a house he wasn’t familiar with, and that made him remember how bad it had been to get in there and let himself go. He was supposed to be his friend, not someone who slept with him. It felt really weird to think about that, to know that he _had slept with him._ He finally found the bathroom, without having to search too much, and when he found the light and turned it on he was surprised. It was a huge bathroom, but well illuminated, with a bathtub very spacious and a lot of eccentric attachments for a bathroom… well, eccentric too. The walls were painted on the same color that the rest of the house, and there was a sort of mosaic with some broken tiles in one wall put on an irregular way and with mostly bright colors that, abstractly, simulated the form of a human eye; there were a lot of details like that on a relatively small space, but at the same time it didn’t seem like there were too many things. He was sure about one thing: it had to cost a lot.

After peeing, he looked at himself for awhile, half shaking without realizing it, trying to find out how he felt by the scrutiny of his own eyes, until the answer he got, the only answer, was absolutely nothing, and then he wanted to _really_ get up.

He got out of the bathroom, passed the bedroom on which he had been all night (and he took a look. And he saw Marco sleeping, without bothering at all by the sun that was starting to illuminate it all, and he also saw something he couldn’t say what it was before, something that was almost above that double bed, something he could say now it was a hammock made of a very thick cloth, one of that weird hammocks on which you can lay and relax and it’s the most comfortable thing in the world. But, why to put it above a bed? And so high? It was at, minimum, almost five feet from the mattress. Without doubt, he had some weird predilections regarding to his house), he got down the three or four stairs, but it wasn’t a stair, it was more like a ramp made on purpose, he reached the kitchen and hesitated a little before taking a glass and putting water on it. _Me taking water isn’t going to make him wake up_ , he finally solved, but didn’t take in count that he was trembling too much to move, that he hadn’t stopped trembling thanks to the sensations that he had never experimented before. He should have stayed there until Marco woke up.

The glass fell off his hand. There was no explanation. The gravity exerted his powers and Mario didn’t offer any resistance. The water fell everywhere, wetting absolutely everything, and it made an extreme noise; too much to be a regular glass, or maybe it was because of the hour or the silence that rounded him. The chipped pieces were everywhere, and Mario was starting to collect the biggest ones to sweep the rest, nervous, angry at himself and trembling even more when Marco reached them, hurried, almost running, by the noise.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Mario raised his head, hurried too, and saw that the other man’s face was more confused than anything else. “I just wanted to drink some water, I’m sorr…”

“Oh, leave it” he said, shaking his head. He turned on the light that Mario had left off, practically removed the broom from his hands and started to finish what the younger had started before, with a weak protest from his part **;** not too much because the determination on which Marco was telling him things through the body, he was sliding him slowly (he was still warm because of the blankets on his bed, and didn’t have worried on putting a shirt on because he had woken up quickly and rushed) and sweeping and getting all the pieces of the glass together on a record time. As soon as he finished, he grabbed a rag and dried all the water. After, he threw it friendly at Mario, almost on his face.

“What a way to wake me up, eh?”

Mario smiled, ashamed. He felt guilty.

“I’m sorry, really, I didn’t want to. I’ll buy you some new ones today; they’ll be the exact same as these. I promise.”

Marco’s face, his expression, softened as he listened. “You don’t need to.”

He would do it anyway.

“I really want to sleep. Let’s back to bed, I think I’m late for studying after all. What time is it? I don’t know. Let’s go.”

And so they did. During the way to his bedroom, Mario hesitated, but the time went by and he didn’t realize and he was suddenly lying down again in the place where he had spent all night. Marco didn’t go to his side, after all; he went directly to turn on the light (he had one of these in which you can regulate the intensity, because obviously the light of the sun was too much to open the curtains and not having a light wasn’t good for him. It was okay, more comfortable in that way) and then he _stood_ on top of the bed. It didn’t cost him a lot to climb onto the hammock, to extend himself on it and leave the head and part of the arms hanging a little bit, just to look at him better. “Put yourself comfortable” he suggested, and there’s when he realized that he was just using one side of the bed, like waiting for him to put on the other side. He adjusted that to be on the center of the bed, directly in front of him, both staying facing each other, and there was silence.

What I’ve been doing what am I doing right now and now what I’m going to do I’m so tired. “Did you sleep something? Because it looks like you haven’t.”

He shook his head to manifest a negative answer. Speaking had become exhausting, but the tiredness he was complaining about less than a minute ago had vanished completely. “Let’s play a game” he proposed.

“What game?” he had a sleepy voice and he hadn’t even realized. Marco smiled to him.

“I’ll make a question, something about you that I want to know, and you answer it, and then you make a question and I answer it. They can’t be ‘normal.’” Mario nodded, showing his agreement with the _game_. “Well. Mario.” And he paid more attention, after hearing his name. “I’ll start. Why you didn’t tell me that it was your first time with a man?”

He was surprised when he heard the question, in the presence of how direct he was with something like that. Evidently, by the face the other put, he demonstrated it. “Would that, me telling you, have changed something?”

Marco hesitated for a second. “Maybe. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think it was… important. I didn’t think it was that obvious. And I didn’t think.”

“Oh. Idiot.” He said it without doubt this time, without getting angry buy without smiling, like a comment that he seriously couldn’t avoid. Mario, without knowing why, wasn’t bothered at all about that. “Your turn.”

“How did you know that?” Mario asked just to ask something, because that was the only thing that came to his mind.

“Is that your question? Well, I answer. It was too obvious. _You didn’t know what to do.”_

“Mm…” he was a bit embarrassed, yes. But again, that didn’t bother him. He felt incapable of being bothered about that.

“Do you work? Are you studying something?”

“No, no. A while ago I worked as an employee but I saved money, left it and came here” he answered quickly, remembering very sure about it the lie he had made up. And in that moment, when Marco nodded like saying he understood, he should’ve asked him something to advance on what he was supposed to do. “Are you currently in love?”

“No” there wasn’t a moment of doubt before answering when he heard the question. Mario believed him. He inspired a lot of trust. He shouldn’t believe him like that, without questioning it, but he did. “What about you?”

He doubted. The logic, the true answer was ‘no’, but he couldn’t say it. He wasn’t with someone, his state wasn’t ‘complicated’, but the only thing that came to his head was Ann’s image, the woman who was beautiful, who looked at you just as Marco did, and who hated him. Ann! He had completely forgotten that he had seen her just the night before. “Yes” the blond answered his own question when he saw his attitude. Of course; if he had doubted it was logical that Marco thought was he was surely thinking.

“No, no. I’m not in love. Why was your answer so definitive?” he didn’t even know if it was his turn to ask or not, and he didn’t care, because he knew the real intention the older had had when he had proposed the ‘game’.

“Because that’s something I’m sure of. I’m not in love, I won’t fall in love. I don’t have a boyfriend, and I won’t have one.”

Mario felt these words as a reminding for him, he felt like he was talking to him about it for that reason. Also, taking in count how he said it, it looked as if he had already said those words several times before, as if he was tired of telling people that he wouldn’t be their boyfriend. By the high school’s antecedents (and by his skinny but muscular body, his half-side smile, his always perfectly styled hair, incredibly even at night and when he was just waking up, his voice and the way he had to personalize the words), it was probably true. He didn’t know what to answer, so he nodded again.

“So… last night. How did I do? Did you like it?” he asked, in that ‘oh I’m just a bit curious’ way. Mario laughed; what else could he do?

“Is that something you ask to all the people you’ve slept with?”

“Maybe. Okay, no, but seriously; would you do it again with a man?”

Why did Marco ask things that were so difficult so answer? Would he do it again? Would he do it again with him? The answer to that question was more a yes than a no. would he do it again with a man? He didn’t know. It was more a no than a yes.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, well, wait a minute. It’s obvious that your answers are too extended and it’s impossible to play that with you. When you’re done answering I fell asleep up here, Mario.”

“I’m short but concise and clear.”

“Yeah, I realized about that. So I will make you one last question and you’ll answer properly. Why do you smile and laugh so much?” he wasn’t speaking too much that morning, but he did smile, and he laughed at some questions (most of them). It was like something natural, and even if he wanted he couldn’t avoid it. If there was something that’d called his attentions about that strange character was the infinite amount of curiosity he had and the almost inexistent shyness to ask things that other people may consider unnecessary, weird, nonsense, but that for him were from a vital importance. And there he was again, making him notice it, starting to play with a broken yarn from the hammock, giving rhythmic taps against anything as he had done the other day (the day that seemed so far. It was weird; less than twenty-four hours had happened between that moment and there).

This time, Mario didn’t need much time to answer.

“Is it too much? I guess I laugh every time I have a minimal chance to do it” it wasn’t a lie, even on his ‘detective life’. He didn’t skimpsmiles every time he needed. Only then, when Marco could see that Mario’s response was serious and a bit more extended than the last ones,  he was looking at him in the eye, as if he was trying to intimidate him, but it didn’t work (it had never worked with Mario) because the younger’s answer was quiet, calmed, as he handed him the phone that was on the bed and that had ringed just at that exact moment, with the lips slightly curved on what seemed the beginning of a smile but that it didn’t end, and it could be infinite or endless, it depended on the point of view. He had thought a lot about that on his life. “When I’m dead I won’t have the chance to do it.”

 

“Do you like coffee or you prefer something else? No, better something fresh. Coffee later. I think I have a lot of fruit that I bought; somewhere… here, it must be good, I’ll do something with it.”  Although he had made a question, it looked like he was speaking for himself. It had only been entering the kitchen and having to look at everything with surprise (and having to look at him, shirtless with justification because it was so hot on that house that he was about to take off his own shirt), and listening to comments about what he would make as breakfast for both (and to add something, he was a good cook). “What time is it? Uh, I should be having a class right now.”

“Class? What are you studying?” _that’s why_ he carried his bag sometimes. He really didn’t look like someone who studied at college.

“I am at the pilot school” he assured him as he took everything he was going to need, without hiding a proud smile. He wasn’t waiting that.

“Are you going to be an aviator? Wasn’t that your teenage dream?”

“Is it bad? You just don’t forget some dreams.”

“Is there any school like that here?”

“Well, it’s more like a course. But I’ve always wanted to do that. That and playing for Borussia Dortmund. Now I’m lucky if I go to the Westfalestadion from time to time.”

“Huh, yeah” right. Marco played football and, by what he remembers, he played good. Very good. He was the best player at their school by far, and he deserved more, but he didn’t know why he couldn’t play professionally. Also, there wasn’t someone on Earth who loved Borussia Dortmund more than Marco, and that was why he didn’t want him to know that he was a Bayern fan, so he changed the subject. “Why did you skip class? Is this high school again?”

“I fell asleep. I generally don’t sleep, I think ‘what if he steals something what if he goes just like that what if something happens during the night’ and then I just go directly to class –this is the only day of the week that I have class in the morning, after all. It’s generally later–. And this is the first time I can sleep with someone, like really _sleep_. Because you inspire trust.”

It hurt him to hear the other man saying that; especially because, he was almost sure, if things didn’t end well for Marco it would be thanks to him. He didn’t think about that anymore. He didn’t have to think about that. “You didn’t sleep. You should at least rest a little bit.”

“Seeing how it looks that thing you’re cooking? No, thanks.”

“Okay. But it’s not for you” he said in a completely serious, while he stopped cutting the apples to look at him. “I’ve got a friend coming over in a while.”

Mario raised an eyebrow almost without realizing. He couldn’t even say if it was serious or not what he was saying; he had that kind of horrible humor characteristic for being sarcasm on the edge of the sincerity that unless you are very familiarized with it you probably won’t get.

“Really?”

“No. He’ll come later, for lunch, I guess.” And then a silence came again, a long one, one that lasted minutes, while Marco settled the table. “Did you like me making philosophy about the paradox yesterday?”

Mario laughed. He _had_ liked it. “How can you be so intelligent so suddenly?” he asked, copying the way the other had to ask without realizing.

“Well, see; in life, you’ve got to be intelligent or beautiful. There is no time or opportunities for both. You’ve got to choose one and develop it as much as you can.”

“I can objection that. But anyways, what would I have chosen?”

“Mm… I don’t know yet; I incline more to the side of the beauty.”

“Wait… does that make me silly?”

“It’s not _that_ extreme, but probably yes, we’ll have to see when I get to know you better. Ah, talking about that, what do I look like? What kind of person do you think I am? It’s something I usually ask when there is a bit more of confidence with someone, if you wanted to ask. It’s because… ah, it doesn’t matter, but it’s a good reason.”

They had confidence? Three conversations and a night together and Marco was already considering that they were close? Good. It was without doubt good.

“What did I think about you?” He looked at him again as if he was looking at him for the first time. “You looked like someone… well, first, you looked heterosexual.”

“Yeah, I’m conscious about that. But, why?”

“Because of the tattoo you’ve got, well, both tattoos. Because of the hair, footballer style, and the body, you’ve got an athletic body. I don’t know many athletes homosexuals. And of course, because of the fame you had when I knew you. Why do you care so much?”

“Because I care, that’s it.”

“Well, but you shouldn’t.”

“You surely don’t care, don’t you?”

“You look like someone who smokes. Do you smoke?” Mario ignored him, without wanting to answer to that comment made on a tone he didn’t especially like.

“Yes. From time to time.”

“What do you smoke?”

“Only cigarettes.”

“Nothing else?”

“My friends smoke, I don’t. Why do you care, anyway?” and after a pause: “I prefer not to. I play football and box, more and less, so I can’t smoke that.”

“Mario looked at the box of cigarettes that was now more obvious than ever resting on the table, next to the keys, a walletand a watch that apparently he used when he got out, and he laughed at the irony. “That’s a contradiction. Anything is better than a cigarette, I think.”

“There’s nothing fun about a life without contradictions.”

Marco reflected a lot, constantly, about everything. He seemed incapable of keeping a conversation without letting out a phrase that he had obviously been thinking, constructing for a while, or that at least meditated for seconds before saying it and then he threw it completely sure, almost pronouncing it letter by letter, with a little bit of pride, almost selfishness. At the beginning, when he first knew him, he didn’t realize, but with the time it got stronger and obvious, and it was impossible not to notice it. Mario should’ve been bothered about it, Mario couldn’t be bothered about it, he should be irritated by that attitude and try to hide it, but there was nothing to hide. Marco was still incredibly charming to his eyes, from the type of charm that is conscious of that and uses it for his convenience.

 

If someone had told him that at nine in the morning of the second day of the second month in Dortmund he would be falling asleep on a sofa, with an arm wrapped around the waist and the head resting on the chest of Marco Reus, feeling the soft fragrance to coffee almost as good as the machine one (he had discovered that the blond was slightly obsessed with that drink) that Marco was drinking, sitting and letting the other one rest on him as he passed his arm by one side and drank and didn’t stop unconsciously caressing him with the forearm, the arm, on a way that sometimes mothers or fathers do but completely not maternally, he would’ve laughed because there was no chance, that couldn’t happen.

But the feeling was there. It was so heartwarming, the best feeling on the world, and he could fall asleep and sleep forever feeling the heartbeats of the other one and it wasn’t bad, it didn’t feel bad, it didn’t feel gay, it didn’t feel wrong. Until he suddenly remembered everything he wasn’t supposed to be doing and he felt guilty because he knew that it was _all that,_ and Marco’s arm was suddenly uncomfortable and every time he made a comment more to himself than for Mario he wanted to tell him to shut up.

After some minutes in which he oscillated between that state and a state about to fall asleep, he really thought about it. Just like that, like he was at that moment, he could get more information more quickly. If he continued like that, he would end early and it would be more effective; Marco would tell him more things. Also, he _did_ want to stay like that, he wanted to be like that forever. He was not going to admit it and he wasn’t going to do it if he didn’t have a reason, but he wanted.

At one moment, Marco left on the floor next to the sofa the cup that didn’t have coffee anymore, with heavy, slow movements because of the tiredness (he found weird that he still was tired after a coffee, but he didn’t say anything). “I’ve got a friend coming in a while” he whispered almost on his ear, and Mario said ‘mm’, and he didn’t know, he didn’t care if the other was listening. It didn’t matter, because almost immediately Marco spoke again. “Would you like to stay here and eat with us?”

He would’ve liked to answer ‘mm’ too, because he didn’t really feel like talking at that moment. Sadly, that expression didn’t serve to say everything he had to say. “Don’t I bother you? Don’t I bother him?”

Marco looked at him as if he was crazy. “If I was bothered, or him, I would already be kicking you out, I assure you that. Auba is obsessed with meeting new people.”

“Auba?”

“That’s how we call him.”

He knew that.

“Would you do me a favor and wash everything that’s left from breakfast? It’ll take you two minutes, I swear. I have to feed my cat” he asked suddenly, as if he didn’t realize that the other one was about to fall asleep on his chest.

“Your cat?” Mario asked wide-awake but uncomprehendingly.

“Yes. I’ve got a cat, but he lives at the guest room. I’ll feed him and let him go because he must be bored. You aren’t allergic or something like that, don’t you?”

“No. I just think cats are too bitter, but I’m not allergic. Do you want me to feed it and you do the dishes?”

Marco smiled, knowing neither of them wanted to do it. “Okay, come on. Get up.”

And Mario got up.


	7. You Talk Way Too Much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm ashamed that it took me so much time to write THIS CHAPTER. Basically nothing happens, apart from Mario having lunch with Auba and Marco, and... well. Anyways, I hope you like this and new things are coming (hopefully).

Auba, Marco’s friend, talked too much. He smiled too much, too. His factions were weird, exaggerated, accentuated every time he laughed, internationals (he had a very strong accent from somewhere else, and there were some words, regionalisms that he had to ask because he didn’t know what they meant), but he was so likeable that you didn’t have a single chance to think he was ugly. He was exactly the opposite as Marco in every aspect, but the most obvious one was the physical one. Marco, when you looked at him closely, looked strong, you knew he had muscles, but when he stood next to Auba he even seemed delicate, fragile, smaller. He let himself be overshadowed by the other one as soon as he arrived, he wasn’t the center of attention anymore and it wasn’t bad at all for him.

Auba entered the house, greeted him excited, introduced himself and two seconds after, he was on the kitchen putting the beer on the fridge so they could keep cold, and two seconds later he was asking if they were going to eat something or they had to go and buy something. Mario, between breakfast and Auba’s arrival, had taken a shower, as Marco offered him while he gave him clothes that he supposed would fit him and he had never used, and he had met the cat. He (she, actually, but Mario had thought it was male) was completely white, couldn’t be more than six months old and was lovely. Even Mario, a person who didn’t like cats in general, found it difficult to repress the smile and the reflex action of hugging her.

Auba hadn’t even asked him what he was doing there, why he was at his best friend’s house, or who he was; he had simply initiated a conversation with a random subject. Maybe he was used to it, to arrive there and found someone he didn’t know with his friend.

On the conversations, Auba was explosive. Both, Marco and Mario, were from quiet nature, and if not quiet just relaxed, but it was impossible for him not to laugh every two seconds of everything the dark-skinned  said, not only for what he said but for _the way he said it._ He just couldn’t shut up and, however, he never said anything if he didn’t think he _had_ to say it. He could realize now why Marco seemed so smiley when he was with him and not with somebody else.

“And, where are you from?” Mario suddenly asked Auba, curious due to his accent. Marco immediately lamented it.

“No, no. Why did you ask? Now he’ll feel the need to explain…”

“Well, you see, I was born in France but a part of my family is from Gabon, and I feel much more identified with that, with them, so I always say that I’m from Gabon. Besides, my mum is Spanish and I’m trying to learn the language to go there, to Spain.”

“…everything.”

Mario felt comforted by the mere fact that he was being there, sitting at the table, waiting for the delivery they had ordered (it’s delivery but the restaurant is naturist so there won’t be a problem, here everything I eat is healthy. Isn’t it, Marco? No? Bah, you’re a liar. I can’t trust you anymore), he felt rounded by good people. Aside from the contact they had kept when they were laying down on the couch, Marco hadn’t touched him since they woke up, but he always seemed on the edge of that, he seemed at the edge of getting close and kissing him, from getting close and thanking him, from getting close. He didn’t do it, and as Auba was there Mario didn’t think Marco would do it.

He laughed at the interaction of both friends; it seemed that that scene had already happened a couple of times before. Or that’s what he thought; that he had laughed, that he had reacted normally. Until Auba heard the doorbell and went to open, and Marco looked at him with that face people put when they feel an irrepressible pity for something, for someone, and finally there was a human reaction from his part, finally he had demonstrated something more than physical attraction or curiosity for him. The thing was _why_ he was looking at it.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

And he couldn’t say yes. He couldn’t agree to obey him, to answer him, as if there was something to answer. He could not forget that the reason why he was there was not to be with him. He left a couple of seconds past, heard Auba laughing for something (oh, how weird) and chatting with the guy who brought the food (oh, how weird x2), and he asked him. “Why am I here now, as if you were someone that I know from all my life? I barely know you.”

And Marco had to get up to set the table and search for the beer because Auba was coming back with the food, talking about any other thing, getting new conversation subjects and excusing for the food beforehand. “I know it doesn’t look good but I swear it’s very good.”

And no, it didn’t seem too good. It seemed like that kind of naturist food that’s _too_ naturist, the kind of naturist he didn’t like, with oats and beans and corn and the rice that’s not normal rice and just no. “I and Marco always eat there after training, or for lunch. Marco loves it.”

Another habit of Auba: talking for the people, as if he knew everything they were thinking and what they wanted to say. For what he had seen, he was generally wrong, but it wasn’t like he cared about it. “Two things. One: it’s ‘Marco and I’, not ‘I and Marco’. Marco always goes first. And two: no, I don’t ‘love it’. You love it and therefore you force me to go with you. It’s not like I don’t like it, and I won’t speak bad about that restaurant, but I don’t love it like you do.

Auba looked at Marco with an expression that was sarcastic on its own, it didn’t need any extra comment to make him note what that meant. _What an expressive person,_ Mario thought.

Auba put the food on the table, while Marco ended up setting the table and Mario tried to help with something (that weird position where he gets up of his chair saying ‘I’ll help you’ to everyone and, receiving as answer a ‘no, I can do it’ he stood there, offering help to feel a little bit useful), and he was looking that the food _really_ didn’t seem good. “I think that’s the most colorful food I’ve ever seen” it had some kind of yellow on the beans, it had green on what surely was spinach, the tomato and some condiments; red, and the egg and the onion). “And it seems like the typical menu on which you grab everything you’ve got on the kitchen and cook it.”

“Mario, it’s just vegetables!”

“Yes, Mario, they’re just normal vegetables. Please show them some respect” Marco agreed with Auba, but there was something different on his tone of voice, something less defensive and more sarcastic. Mario knew he found ridiculous that the Gabonese (that’s how he asked people to call him, instead of French) exaggerated so much and open a theme of discussion about vegetables, but honestly they didn’t have anything else to talk about and the vegetables were what they were going to eat at that moment.

“Mats wasn’t working on the delivery. It was the other guy, the one that’s a bit crazy…”

“Kevin” Marco helped Auba with the memory when he perceived that he couldn’t remember the name. Mario at that point felt more like a spectator of that part of the conversation, and that made him think unavoidably on everything that was bad. _I’ll have to make a fake report. I’ll have to lie on the face of the person I work for because I am an idiot and apparently can’t get involved without screw it up._ He excused to go to the bathroom and when he heard what Auba continued saying, he felt like his attitude was mostly a good choice.

“Yes, Kevin. He said he hasn’t seen you in a while, that he’s starting to miss you” and a little laugh (that wasn’t a teenager’s laugh, it was a contained laugh, a smile that demanded to express a bit more, it wasn’t hysteric and it was totally measured, it made him think of someone more adult than he was, and mature) a bit nostalgic from Marco.

As soon as he reached the bathroom, he tried to think objectively about what he was going to do, what story he was going to invent. He needed, specifically and necessarily, to detail every contact he made with Marco and as Ann had seen him the day before that with him, he needed to make a report where they met that day. He took a moment to think right there, as he hadn’t stopped to think the last day. Why did he like to be with Marco, to touch Marco, to kiss Marco, like what he was: a man, like what he was: a person with mysterious air and contagious self-reliance, a person who didn’t doubt on telling you if he found you attractive or if he felt something? Why was he doing it, because it was forbidden? The forbidden things always had attracted him, were always more interesting than the permitted things. But no, that had never happened to him, he was a person who always went to the assured things. Why he had felt weird when he heard that suggestive sentence, ‘he’s starting to miss you’, that obviously included so much more, him, that had never been even a jealous person? And, why he still didn’t doubt when he thought that he _had_ fallen in love with women on his life?

He felt so far away from home that he didn’t know what to do. And he was thinking all that while he closed his eyes in front of the mirror, as he denied to see himself, to understand what he was seeing reflected; his own guilty expression. His head was a mess.

He knew that there were two things he didn’t have to do, under any circumstance: starting feeling affectively attracted to Marco and his friends, and telling something to someone.

He was there less than two days ago and he was already feeling that he would fail on the first one. What he didn’t know was how he was going to do to repress both, because if he started growing fond of Marco it’s unavoidable that he feels some horrible wishes of telling him the truth, of not to lie to him, of not making him feel fake feelings. Knowing himself, he wouldn’t want to lie and he would tell everything right there. That’s why he breathed once again and decided to go back to the table to continue eating (yes, he was hungry after all).

He was received with a smile from Auba, just to try something new, and when he wanted to realize he already had a plate of food they had served and they were talking again. “So, how and when did you meet?” this one asked.

Mario looked at Marco, a bit desperate because he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what Marco wanted to tell Auba and what he didn’t. So he let the skinny one to the talk. “We’d already met at high school, he was going to the same school than me, he’s two years younger. So he recognized me and…” he decided to leave the phrase by the half, or he didn’t decide it, maybe it was something unconscious, but he didn’t speak more. He was saying so much with that silence, that Marco wanted to hide his face between his hands and blush. He didn’t, because Auba spoke again.

“Did I tell you I have a girlfriend? I have a girlfriend now” he said to both of them, but when he saw Marco surprised Mario thought that the information wasn’t so much for him.

“She said yes? Oh, that confirms my theory” was what he se just said, conscious of the attentive look of Mario over him, always over him.

“Yeah, she said yes. And she didn’t doubt for a second, if you want to know. I’m feeling that is not good for me to listen to your theory” in the middle of the conversation they were eating, and the food wasn’t that bad, actually. It had too many vegetables, maybe, but to be of all that it was good.

“Maybe it’s not good for you to listen to it, but I’m glad she didn’t doubt” he looked directly at Mario and added, in more a confidential tone. “They met three days ago and they are together. They love each other, they say. I say that kind of people are destined to be together… until you really meet and hate each other.

“Wait…” Mario was just realizing of a detail. “ _Girlfriend_?”

Marco tried to repress a laugh, but he failed incredibly. He would’ve liked to have said something intelligent and worthy of a memory, instead of questioning his friend’s sexuality. “Yep. Why? Did you not think that a girl would like me?” Auba said, a bit serious and without understanding the reason of the comment. Until, apparently, he did, because he burst into laugh. “Oh, okay. Well, no, I don’t like men. I only like women.”

“Ah. Ah.” Mario felt nothing but shame; the two or three times they had thought that he was gay he wouldn’t have laughed precisely. So he apologized.

“There’s nothing to be afraid for, God’s sake. You didn’t say that I, I don’t know, look like someone who’s never had a girlfriend… or a boyfriend, in my whole life.” That comment, accompanied with a tone of voice mainly friendly and the smiley expression, encouraged a shy, ashamed smile from Mario. As soon as he looked at Marco again, he realized that he was watching the interaction as if they were two persons he knew from a long time and can finally get along; like when you introduce your girlfriend to your female best friend and they like each other, more or less.

Which doesn’t make sense because Marco and Mario had met, properly said, the day before.

–

“Come on, be honest. Did you like the food?” he tried to get closer to him, talking as if he was telling a secret that no one else could know, even when they were alone at the house. From that close, Mario could see better the intricate drawings on his hair, so perfect that they seemed just made; one of them, the biggest, the shield, the symbol of Batman. He seemed very proud of that, and Mario knew that if he would’ve the hair like that, he wouldn’t be less proud.

“Uh, again with that. Yes, I liked the food; tell Marco if you want, too, when he arrives: it had a bit too many vegetables, but it was still good.”

The Gabonese seemed to be happy with that, so he separated a bit from him and directed his eyes to the second glass of beer, which was at the table waiting to be drunk. “Well. All right, I believe you know” he waited until there was a silence, he waited until the only thing that could be heard was the water running, the noise of the crockery and the glasses being supported, finally clean, his slight voice singing a song he didn’t even know the name of. And that’s where Auba started with the subject. “Did you realize that Marco was speaking all the time, until you thought I was gay, and he shut up? And _then_ he offered to go buy ‘something’, leaving us alone.”

“And what does that mean? I’m losing you.”

“Well, I’m saying that he must be thinking something. He’s _always_ thinking about something he doesn’t tell you; one of the first things I’ve learnt from Marco. And, besides, he insisted on me coming while you were here. It looked like he wanted me to meet you.”

And that’s where Mario pretended that everything Auba was saying didn’t affect him at all. “But, what does this have to do with everything?”

“Mario, he never wants me to meet the persons he sleeps with and he just met. He always says ‘don’t come today, there’s someone at home and I’m not interested on him meeting you’, and I respect that, of course. But _he asked me_ to come, do you understand?”

He still didn’t know what he was trying to say with all that; he certainly didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. “But…”

“No, better leave it. Maybe I’m saying stupidities and Marco is just as always. Even thought I would like you to know how Marco is when he acts _the same as always_.” By the face he had, some details that were speaking for him, Mario knew Auba didn’t feel like he was saying stupidities. Maybe he wanted him to think, he wanted to do it on purpose to make him start paying more attention to some things.

“But, why are you putting so much determination on me being with Marco?”

 “When you start to truly know Marco you’ll realize what I mean.”

They heard the door being opened and closed; following, a voice that seemed on a bad mood. “I have the dessert and a lot of ‘fuck you’s for an asshole that almost kills me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


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